


Dark Matter

by lalazee



Series: Matter 'Verse [3]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Academy Era, Angst, Drabble, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Meld, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalazee/pseuds/lalazee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some nights that Kirk knows Spock will walk away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Matter

There are some nights that Kirk knows Spock will walk away.

Evenings spent tangled in grey sheets damp with sweat and sex; evenings where those eerily white fingers singe across Kirk’s temples in search of the unlit fuse which will spark and burn and cauterise them together.

But the fire never comes – not in the way Spock wishes, anyway.

Because Kirk is empty, and he knows it.

There is a barren wasteland separating them; one which cannot be bridged with a thousand kisses or the mingling of bloodied lips and fingertips or the thick heat of Spock _pulsing pushing forcing_ , always inside him in every way that Kirk can’t handle but pretends he can. He always pretends he can handle anything – anyone.

Kirk has been hollow for a very long time. He can laugh, but the sound echoes within his ribcage like a spectre of something that once was. He can have fun, but he doesn’t feel it in his bones, in his marrow.

Kirk has been cold for a very long time. He can’t remember how long. He froze over somewhere between being forgotten in the bathtub when he was six and watching the back of Sam’s head disappear when he was ten and remembering at age eighteen that he even had a birthday. There have never been any hands to hold or bodies to embrace or beating hearts against his ear to keep him warm.

Maybe that’s why Kirk enjoys spending his time with Spock. Because when they grasp each other close in the night, all possessive, caging limbs and gruffly whispered terms of ownership – Kirk doesn’t hear Spock’s heart beneath his ear.

There’s nothing there. Just like Kirk. It makes him feel less alone. It comforts him.

Except that Spock’s heart _is_ there, just in a different spot. It still flares with Spock’s mercurial moods; emotions that he attempts to shift aside, but only ends up hurling them at the world like comets. Spock incinerates people with a single look, with his fervent desire for knowledge and answers and _everything_.

Spock wants everything from everyone and Kirk has nothing. Nothing to give.

Kirk has jealousy and manipulation and fear and anger and a hundred other ways to piece himself together so that no one can peer inside the gaping maw of his chest.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Spock does. That’s what he tries to do.

And this is why, on some nights, Kirk _knows_ that Spock will walk away.

They’re still clothed when Spock prods at Kirk’s mind, at his heart – as if all that is somehow more important than his body and the inviting arch of his hips. Spock’s fingertips rasp across Kirk’s cheekbone, so he breaks the touch by shucking Spock’s shirt off with a desperate little moan.

Kirk doesn’t want to go there again; he’s so good at everything, so fucking brilliant – but he’s not good at this. Can’t let Spock in, can’t let anyone in _there_.

The ridge of teeth and the prick of canines scrape down his throat, nip at his collarbone, and Kirk goes pliant with relief. Spock is growling low and deep against his skin – in Vulcan, in Orion, Kirk doesn’t know – and smearing bruises into his wrists, his shoulders, marking him _mine mine mine_.

Kirk yanks Spock’s mouth to his, silencing every vapid promise, every thought with feverish, open-mouthed kisses all thick and heavy with desperation. This has to be a battle; Kirk doesn’t know any other way to survive, any other way to live. Take things too slow and he’ll eventually freeze in place.

Spock shoves his hand between the pillow and Kirk, cups the back of his head and pulls him impossibly closer. Blessed heat curls at Kirk’s toes, melts the tension in his thighs, and flushes his cheeks until they burn. Spock’s palm cups Kirk’s jaw, and for a moment he’s so taken aback by the gentleness of the action that he’s caught off-guard when Spock shallowly thrusts into his mind.

 _You’re pathet–_

 _–ou’ll never have what it takes to –_

 _– ran away from home? I hadn’t noti–_

 _– shut up J–_

 _– you still here? –_

 _–en are you leav–_

 _– goodbye._

Kirk doesn’t scream, doesn’t hiss or kick or punch. He simply frosts over, curls numbness over him like a blanket; and it’s enough to shatter Spock’s connection and tear them apart.

It’s only when Spock is lurching from the bed and stalking around the room that Kirk realises he feels oddly vacant, in a way he’s never before experienced. He barely registers the crack and splinter of Spock’s fist against a window. Kirk just sits up in bed and stares at the wall, mutely cataloguing the warmth in his belly, the tingling of his fingertips. It’s a strange sensation, and not entirely unwelcome.

From across the room Spock’s voice is unnaturally rough, scorched with an emotion Kirk can’t place because Spock can be a fucking enigma, even for Kirk.

“I want to leave.”

Jim doesn’t flinch – he gives himself that, at least.

“Your loss.”

“Be _silent_ when I am speaking.”

“Thought you’d said what you needed to say.”

“No.”

Jim shrugs in reply, even as the action causes phantom pain to sing in every limb.

Spock sighs – full-on sighs out of his own volition, so he must have a good break-up speech prepared.

“For once it is imperative that you hear me, Jim. I want to leave, and yet I find that I cannot. I _should_ leave, because I have a difficult time discerning whether you are giving or taking from me.”

Movement from behind him as the mattress sinks and shudders at his back. Kirk swallows tightly as Spock’s arms sling around his shoulders and warms his chest. Spock’s lips are at his ear, saying quietly into the shadows:

“I will only tell you this once, and if you forget or need to be told again you may go elsewhere because my patience has ran extremely dry. So hear me, Jim.”

Kirk’s heart flutters in his breast, such a foreign feeling that he _does_ flinch, just as Spock murmurs, “I am yours.”

 _Mine_?

Something sparks; crackles and spits and lights up in Kirk. Something that, given time, threatens to be all-consuming.

Kirk grins into the night.

 _Mine_.

No one was walking away from James Kirk.


End file.
